This gorgeous lady is 5 months old! She has finally hit the double digits and now weighs 10 pounds even. She is doing so incredibly well! She is still on TPN for 22 hours a day and is eating around 35-40 mL by mouth now. We
disconnect her from her TPN around 5:30pm in the evening and then
hook her back up to her TPN around 7:30pm. It's so nice to have her cord free during those 2 hours. As her oral feeds increase they will gradually reduce the number of hours she has to be on TPN each day until hopefully she'll be able to get completely off of it. Some kids with similar intestinal situations are off TPN in a couple of years. Others are still on it into their teenage years. We are definitely hoping it happens sooner rather than later, but only time will tell.
She has been all smiles lately and it has been so fun. She loves to suck on her hands, is starting to bear weight on her legs, and has a really strong little neck. Because of her central line we can't bathe her but she enjoys her sponge baths and the tummy massages I give her to help her scars heal.
She loves her grandpa
...and getting smothered with attention whenever we take her to family gatherings.
We finally got the okay to start taking Carly to church for a little bit. We've only been taking her to Sacrament meeting so far because it falls between her feeds. Feeding her in public places is kind of risky because she will usually have a major blow out with each feed, which equals a huge mess to clean up. You've never seen a real true blow out until you experience a short gut baby blow out. Wowzers! Believe me, it's something else! We usually go through many, many outfits, blankets, and diapers each day. Yesterday I put a brand new outfit on her and within 30 minutes it was covered in poop! Yeah, it was pretty awesome. This girl knows how to let it rip!
Whenever I take Carly outside on the porch, she's like a little girl magnet and all the neighbor girls immediately swarm around her and start talking to her in their baby voices. They like to bring over their little crying doll that you can see in the picture. Carly loves it when she hears the baby cry. It makes her smile.
This is how we look every Sunday evening when we do Carly's
dressing change &
line cap change. We get the older kids tucked in bed first so we can do the change distraction free. We wrap Carly's arms in the first part of a
double swaddle so they stay down. Carly usually stays pretty calm during the dressing change but if she starts to fuss, Mike's job is to give her a binky and keep her happy while I do the change. When we first learned how to change the dressing, it took us forever, but we've totally got the process down pat now.
Carly has truly been such a blessing to have in our home. Yes, her care is far more time consuming than a regular ol' baby and sometimes her TPN changes and dressing changes come at very inconvenient times or when we are completely exhausted from the day, but she is so worth it! She is such a strong little girl. She has the scars to prove it!
Favorite quote this week:
"I've never met a strong person with an easy past."
Life rules!
P.S. I know this blog has been consumed by all things Carlylately, but I promise to get some updates about all of the amazing things Bryson and Lilly have been up to very soon!
